I broke mine back in college, writing an epic pome I called "Beowulf" -- maybe you heard of it. Anyway, it got set wrong and now I write iambs in trochaic tetrameter and Alexandrines as blank verse. Here's an example of what I mean by the latter:

See? And the doctors say it can't be fixed without affecting my Metricali Rose bone.

And now to get (at last) some kicks Hears triple-two and ten times six!! Come forth, ye bells and trumpets loud, And spread the news (of which I'm proud) That by quick action, lickety-splixty I've posted 222 and sicty!!

As we are well past 22K, dear sir, you will appreciate that any posts numbered e (whose numerical value truncated to 20 decimal places is: 2.71828 18284 59045 23536...) or ¹ (3.1514...) are far behind on our dusty trail, but please feel free to go back and grab them, and none will contest you. Likewise the square root of -1, whose friends call him i is somewhere back in the historical mists of our early beginnings. But I urge you to be careful in your claimancy, here, since it may be the case that ALL our numbers are imaginary, this being the MOAB and all.

As for ° +1, do be patient and it shall be yours as soon as we reach it.

An olde gem attributed to various English-speaking school systems, but still worth a grin:

Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River .

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

That's...that's alright. I'm used to it. Kicked around, rejected everywhere, why just the other night up at the Legion Hovel I was playing cards and just knew that my straight flush (Queen down) was the winning hand. I bet the farm on it, even my pants. And I was right! My flush would have won if we hadn't been playing Uno at the time. Fortunately, the other guys let me keep my pants for they knew what my wife would say if I came home pantsless...pantless...sans culottes. So I'm used to it. I'd go jump into the river and drown if it wasn't frozen and I'm probably break my ankles or at least sprain them instead. And in the summer when it's not frozen it's only a couple inches deep.

Thank you for your recent shipment of Idaho snow. I am sorry to say the quality control on your product was well below standard. Don't you people even know how to make reliable snow? Your shipment was entirely unable to withstand the rigprs of the targeted environment here, even in the first day of deployment. As a result it suffered a complete meltdown, and ended up running down the streets and into the flower beds completely beyond control. Your logistics system, which we asked to deliver the snow to Lake Hodges reservoir, ended up sprinkling the faulty product over half the county. As a result we received none of the expected benefits of a large snowfall. None of our citizenry are getting to shovel anything, no-one is freezing, no snowblowers have been purchased, the market in wide-bladed shovels continues to be dormant, no snowmen decorate our green lawns, and my little sister has not been pummeled with a single slushball.

I am sorry to say we cannot consider this a fulfillment of contract on your part and would request that you cancel the delivery order; Idaho needs to go back to the drawing board as far as snow is concerned, and work up a more robust design before it again enters the export market.

Ah, but there are hoseurs, LH, as surely as there are voyageurs, explorateurs, or even travailleurs. I am speaking to one even as I write! Do you think I am how you say delusionaire? Fie!! C'est un canard enorme.

Ah, yes, Goody Two-Shoes. She was one of the lights of Plymouth, Mass, wasn't she, back in the old days?

There are no "hoseurs", Amos! LOL! It's just unthinkable. It would be a contradiction in terms. I think you are referring, sir, to "tabernacs". A tabernac is the French Canadian equivalent of a hoser, but a tabernac is never a "hoseur".

Oh Johnny, get a life, fer Pete's Sake. I was stringing you along anyway. You are such a goody two shoes, and, really, no fun at all.

I had a much better time going to dinner with Dani and splitting a bottle of bubbly to celebrate my pending elevation from the cesspool to the basement of financial security (Mastercard and Visa will again be pleased), than I would have had with you anyway.

I only regret that we drove to town instead of walked. Then we could have finished the evening at the Blue Bayou, listening to Cool John Ferguson

Rapaire, you stop that skin business, and don't give me any of your lip, either. See what you've done!!! You're making Janie wobble her lower lip and sniff!!! Back off, dude, and take that pseudopodal hand-puppet Prom Boy Johnny with you. You can have 33333, if you are good. If you're not you my find the head of a giant squid gracing the foot of your bed some morning.

Oh, Janie! Why did you do it? And just before I was to get my Eagle Scout badge, too. There we were, dancing the last dance, cheek to cheek, me wearing my white sport coat and a pink carnation and you in your strapless prom dress, when all of your skin fell off.

Now I am a broken shell, a ne'er-do-well writing hack speeches for Republican candidates, living in San Diego with all the other hacks, drinking Wild Irish Rose wine and consorting with politicians.

Mommmmmmmeeeeeeee....MAKE 'EM STOP! Rapaire and Little Hawk are being mean to me - don't listen to them, Mom, Rapaire DID TO start it, and I wouldn't have kicked him in his bum knee if he had just left me alone....and Little Hawk's makin' fun of me (sniff-snort-hiccup) - he called - called me- sniff - well anyway - I don't know what youth means in Canuck -but I'll betcha the English translation is a bad word. I think you should wash his mouth out with soap.

Amos tried to stick up for me, but they wouldn't listen. I don't think they should get any of that jello salad you promised we could have before bedtime tonight.

First I want to find out what's wrong with it. And yes, I kinda expect surgery; I'd give it a 75% chance. I can feel things move inside the joint when I do crazy, wild things like walk or climb stairs or get up. What concerns ME is that we have tickets to fly to Dublin on May 18 and back on June 1. Fortunately, Pat took out trip insurance and she can always go without me (a couple of friends are also going.)

Ah, :itt;e Hawk, you play my stern, polysyllabic lectures back to me and expect me to be recondite? Pshaw, teach your gramma to suck eggs, rather.

Your disrespect for descriptive, regional linguistics shows you as an authoritarian martinet, sirrah, a man of much pretense and little conscience or discrimination about the genuine values of communication; in short a poser, and a hoser, Or, if you insist on QuŽbecois, a poseur and a hoseur.

The word is still "poseur", Amos. It's a French word. The fact that a few dumbass American youths have such lazy brains that they can't handle spelling or pronouncing any word they haven't already seen in Batman or Popular Mechanics does not change the fact that the real word is "poseur".

A "poser" is a question that is very difficult to answer. She was not talking about a poser, she was talking about a poseur. Note that the accent in poseur is on the 2nd syllable, while the accent in poser is on the first.

Once again, sir, you are being a cantakerous, obstreperous, deliberately obstructionist, and downright unreasonable diddlyboob of the worst sort. I shall have to reduce your official intellectual rating by one star...from a "9" to an "8". Hang your head in shame!

Janie - It's true we don't have too many hillbillies...but we have thousands and thousands of hosers in Canada, and they are just as good. Or bad. Depending on how you look at it. And then we've got Newfies and Squid-Jiggers too. If them "byes" lived in Tennessee or West Virginia, they would BE hillbillies of the first water, I can assure you. Newfies make "Screech" too and it's even stronger than moonshine.

I feel sorry for Johnny. His whole life ahead of him, voted "Most Likely To Succeed," valedictorian AND salutarian for his class, Class President, football hero by scoring the winning touchdown at the Homecoming Game, Captain of the basketball team, champion goalie of the soccer team, First Trumpet in the Band, National Honor Society, accepted at Harvard AND Yale AND Bob Jones University, champion debater, and voted "Biggest Heartthrob" by no less than six sororities. Poor Johnny...doomed to a life of disgrace and shame and Utter Degradation And Depravity.

Cute kids like me don't cast curses. That curse was created by Mom her own self so that I'd get a Really Cool Number because I'm hobbling around with a bum knee, using a hiking stick to assist. Mom thought that it might cheer me up, what with me facing possible surgery and all, and so she cast the curse.

The problem with Canada, LH, is a dearth of hillbillies. Other than that, I understand it's a pretty fine place - except for the fact that you have winter there. " course, that's also the problem with Idaho.

A pox your curse, Rapaire. Such curses mean nothing to a hillbilly. We're born pretty thin-skinned. By the time we're 50, it has about all worn off anyhoo.

It is most presumptuous of you, Rapaire, to even pretend to be casting curses in the House of MOAB. Especially against your own sibling. Now you say you're sorry right now. Otherwise you are going to catch it but good.

I hope Janie doesn't plan on going to the Prom this or any year. All of her skin is going to fall off during the Big Dance. Nothing else, just her skin. Not even her clothing. All of a sudden her partner (probably named "Johnny") will be dancing with a skinless person. He'll scream and run away, dropping his condoms as he goes. Out in the parking lot he'll start drinking, the first steps on the downhill road to Perdition And Worse, only it'll be more like driving over a cliff.

My loaf of bread is out. We'll be good and let it cool for a few minutes before we fall on it like savages. . . hot bread and butter. Mmmmmm! Then I need to fix my garage door. Mom's going to hand me the screwdriver when I need it, and keep the dogs from underfoot. She's not perched over her computer trying to get an aesthetically interesting number, she has things to do today!

Who stands in protoplasm's thrall, Condemned by body mass to live, Entombed by cells, bound to the halls Of that which takes, but scarcely gives Such a one, whose mind is full Of breasts and chests and flesh and butts He is not meet, except in Bull To speak the name of honest Guts. Nor claim, while slave within those halls, To know the higher truth of Balls. Those golden rivers without fear Transcend the lives of body's claim And do not need perfume, nor beer, To reach beyond mere body fame. Then, from your mortal shell stand freed And listen for still Spirit's call, ANd only there, stand with t he creed, The Higher Truth of Guts and Balls.